Exploding Heart Disorder
by Kira The Dead Ninja
Summary: In the wake of his unloving parents' passing Avery Lockwood and his cousin Ash Kensington move to Tokyo in the hopes of turning over a new leaf. Pretty much upon arrival they meet the seductively mysterious Ikuto Tsukiyomi and both fall hard. But, Avery's shady dealings in the past are catching up with him and putting Ikuto in danger. Can they come to a compromise? OCXIkutoXOC


**Exploding Heart Disorder**

**Prologue**

**Ash**

How do stories start?

Most begin with a girl and a dream, considering that romance these days is a very female-orientated field. But, our story begins with a death and a move.

My cousin and I stood beside his parents' grave, watching impassively while his parents were lowered into the ground. By the sparkle in Avery's eyes I could tell that he was waiting to jump up and down in joy that the fuckers had finally snuffed it, and sooner than expected. There was no love lost between Avery and his parents. They couldn't handle him and his 'issues', the main part of which being his bipolarity.

When I was six and my parents had carted me round to Aunt Paula and Uncle Carl's house to meet the new baby I had immediately been handed a blanket wrapped bundle and told to go off and play while my parents did 'grown up things'. I had basically had my baby cousin foisted upon me at age six and from there on started a beautiful relationship.

Avery spent the rest of the day playing with my pianist hands and inky side-fringe, screaming when he was torn from my arms after my parents announced that it was time to leave.

From that moment on, Avery and I were inseparable and I spent every spare moment with him, watching him grow for baby to toddler, toddler to child and child to teen. I was practically the only one who gave a shit about his life and he was the only one who cared what happened to me.

I consoled him through his lows and calmed his highs, eventually taking my Psychology degree and PhD in order to better understand him.

We were both achingly similar. Homosexual (although we only held brotherly love for each other and never anything beyond that), unloved and masked; the Phantoms of our own melancholy operas. We just needed our Christine.

**A WEEK LATER**

"Avery, are you sure about this?" I muttered as we disembarked from the family jet. Avery giggled, deep in his usual cutesy act.

"Sure I am big brother! Japan is fun." After the funeral Avery had made the snap decision that the two of us should use our considerable combined wealth to move to Japan. I would either take a job or laze at home and he would continue an education at the local school, Seiyo High. Paula and Carl had taken Avery on holiday to Japan a couple times and he had seriously enjoyed it; the food, the culture, everything. It made him so happy that I couldn't bear to say no.

As we sat in the car on the way to our new house in Tokyo we discussed the future. We would never want for money (we had enough to power a small third world country for a year at least), we had a house (the Lockwood holiday home) and due to our certified genius status we'd have no trouble getting jobs.

My Chara, Leonardo (a sassy yet kind kitsune who made it his personal mission to brighten up my gloomy demeanour), giggled from his perch atop my head, spreading his nine tails in front of his tiny body like a fan dancer. Biscuit, Avery's Chara (a pessimist of a fallen angel) sighed in despair at the stupidity of his counterpart and hid in Avery's scarf, unable to deal with the ditzy fox for another minute longer.

"Cheer the fuck up bitch!" Leo yelled into my ear, causing me to flinch. I flicked him away and hunkered down lower into the leather bucket seats.

"Lockwood-sama, we have arrived at your new home." Avery perked up and I raised my head from where it had been buried in my hands, staring in awe at our new home.

That was a weird notion, home. Even my birthplace had felt more like a hotel to me, surrounded by staff and seeing practically hide nor hair of my parents.

I smirked.

Yes, this would be home, a home where I could be myself and act the way I wanted. A home where I could play piano as loudly as I wanted and slouch around with popcorn, sweatpants and a terrible movie.

And maybe, just maybe, it could be a home where I would fall in love.

**Chapter 1- Avery**

The building was huge and looming over me as I stared up in awe at the monster of a school of which I was going to attend for my next couple of years. Crowds of students in the same boring uniform flooded all around me as they rushed to their daily ordeals and lives.

Japan was certainly different from America.

Running a hand through my dirty blond hair I grimaced at the school map which didn't explain shit- just a bunch of blocks mashed together annotated with smudged blue ink and what seemed to be the head teacher's coffee, black by closer inspection. It's like he drew this the moment I stepped into his office this morning. Out of the corner of my eye two girls in the distance kept looking in my direction curiously, occasionally twitching back to one another the moment my head made the slightest movement.

My head shifted towards them and my sickly acid green eyes met theirs, fighting the urge to walk up to them and ask for their problem I instead lit up my face by smiling my rosy grin- like always. Always. I didn't want to commit social suicide the first day I join this school. What caught my attention was a hot pink haired girl who was having a heated conversation with a soul-blue haired boy whose back was turned me. My head drifted up and down the back of the boy until my thought process rebooted with ' !' making it all I could provide at that exact moment in time.

'Did I just-?' Yes. I just checked a guy out, a guy who looked inhumanly good in tight trousers; well, they resembled jeans or leather pants more than they did a regular part of the uniform. My lips flattened as I thought at my last attempt of a relationship and my thoughts trailed at the images of how happy she now was with him.

This time a lone boy supporting a thick pair of glasses that passed me glimpsed at my face only to find my gleaming features again. Turning back to the strange couple the girl had already pushed passed him like a torpedo through me as well. "Playing hard to get as usual" I heard a milky smooth voiced mutter eluding from him, quickly taking my chances I approached him with my perfected butter-wouldn't-melt expression.

His features could be only described as cat-like, sharp and aware but still unbearably adorable- his inky blue eyes stood out more than they should have.

"Excuse me can you tell me how to get to class 2-C?" A couple eyelashes batted here and there for added effect.

"Oh-um" he seemed reluctant to respond to me as he irritatingly stared after the raging bull with obviously dyed pink hair behind me.

"Please" I stepped closer and closer to him until I almost had him against a wall, he danced around my feet trying to step out but I wasn't going to just let him.

"…" He slipped and squirmed "Ok" his complexion turned an unnoticeable shade of pink. I smiled on cue.

"Thank you! - I'm Avery Lockwood by the way"

"Ikuto Tsukiyomi" He pointed to a narrow path towards a separate building. "The freshmen go there, follow the path and the class should be on the second floor"

I immediately leaned in closer to his face "Thank you again" I breathed making sure he looked me in the eyes, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I morphed back into 'myself' only in a matter of seconds. I blew a goodbye kiss then hopped off the path, turning to look at the confused boy cautiously to make sure my mask didn't peel off in my disgust. 'All of the things I'm going to do to you…Ikuto' daydreaming I accidentally bumped into the blond and brunette I 'met' earlier.

Just everything I needed. My face muscles never grew tired as they used to as now my mask melted into my true emotions, 'Avery was never-ever unhappy'.

"You're the new transfer student from…-" the brunette trailed off.

"America" I giggled.

"Wow" the blond laughed "You must already be the talk of everyone huh?"

I grew uncomfortable.

"Kikyo!" The brunette snapped her gaze over to her friend.

"Anyway…" They turned to me "So what's your dark past?"

"Huh?" I loved reactions to my perplexed expressions.

"Y'know, why did you transfer? School fire? You got into a fist fight with an escaped tiger on school grounds? "

"Kikyo! Look at him! Do you think any of that happened?" she smiled at me "So why did you come to our school?"

"I came here to study in Japan to become the greatest chef!" I thumbed up both of them and chirped a little. Both the girls seemed satisfied with my answer enough to not notice the crack in my tone- I need to practice this more, however after a few seconds I saw the blond look at my hand curiously then right on cue point like a child.

"Where did you get that scar?"

I paused. "A cooking accident! There was a power cut when I was dicing some vegetables to make some stir-fry!" the words weren't painful to choke out anymore. My smile reassured them as I excused myself to my class while tugging my blazer over the cursed left hand with the pale mark hot white mark.

I was absent minded during the entire day as classes passed me by with delight as I found out the two girls were also in every class of mine- The delight must have clawed onto my face and stayed there like a facehugger. A jet black bird flew onto the nearby tree outside out window and greeted me.

' I wonder what you're doing Ash…' the lucky bastard was too old for school and was probably now doing things twice as more interesting than learning how to draw from an ex- drug addict teacher. She didn't seem to be doing too well either as the marks of the substance left dark circles around her eye sockets.

"You need to find a muse~" she practically sang to the class. "A model, of a sense- for your art project this year"

My hand sketched out something without my consent as I was left staring blankly as what now seemed to be the growing form of a certain student. A sketched Ikuto stared back at me from the paper- but why does he have cat ears?


End file.
